Point of Order

Caroline Spelman: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	Members often have to be in two places at once and, for me, today provides a poignant example. It is the day of the funeral of my chairman of planning, and I should be attending it, but I cannot. Therefore, I wish to dedicate this Bill to the memory of Councillor Les Kyles, as a mark of respect.
	The Bill addresses a problem in the planning system arising from the classification of back gardens as brownfield sites for planning purposes, and therefore as a priority for development, that even the most recent guidance is unlikely to solve. I am not the first Member to draw attention to this problem: my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) introduced a ten-minute Bill last July; last October, the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) had a private Member's Bill on a similar subject; and also last year, early-day motion 2130 on garden definition gained 179 signatures from Members in all parts of the House. The repeated reincarnation of this issue in private measures shows that there is a genuine and growing problem.
	As I have said in previous debates on planning, I do not think that the Government set out to make garden development—or garden-grabbing, as we know it—the centrepiece of their planning policy. The problem arose from a combination of factors: gardens being defined as brownfield for planning purposes, the emphasis on "brownfield first" development, and density targets being forced on local authorities. As a result, colleagues in all parts of the House will be familiar with gardens being divided up, sold off and turned into building sites. When they are part of a family-sized house, the house itself will often be demolished in the process to free up land for denser units of accommodation. That is happening all over the country—in the north and the south, in towns and villages and in cities and their suburbs. There is no doubt that it is happening, but why is it a problem?
	Such chaotic and unplanned development is unsustainable in the long term and destructive in the short term. The fact is that the existing infrastructure cannot cope with such a drastic increase in housing density. Roads and drainage systems that were designed to meet the needs of bungalows and family houses are suddenly expected to serve a block of flats or multiple new houses. One property expert has spoken of instances where gardens behind a row of large Victorian houses have been built on, only for the owners to find that their baths would no longer drain properly at certain times of the day. In some of the low-lying villages in my constituency, when we have heavy rainfall the storm drains cannot cope now that so many extra houses have been bolted on to the Victorian sewerage system, which has drainage pipes as much as 100 ft below the surface. That property expert said:
	"The existing drainage systems could not cope with the extra load."
	One does not need to have a degree in engineering to realise the folly of a planning system that actively encourages such a mismatch between infrastructure and development. We must also consider the environmental impact that follows the loss of so much urban greenery. As David Attenborough recently pointed out in a programme on climate change, concreting over the soil surface has disastrous consequences for water supply and drainage.
	Gardens are a vital source of biodiversity. For many who live in urban areas, they are the closest thing to the countryside that they can get. Gardens give people immediate proximity to nature and a safe outdoor space for children to play in. These things directly affect people's quality of life and the Government admitted exactly that when they listed birdsong as a key quality of life indicator. The balance between green spaces and buildings goes to the very heart of what makes a balanced neighbourhood that is sustainable, cohesive and enjoyable for people to live in.
	Clause 1 specifically acknowledges that fact by requiring planning authorities to have "special regard" to the preservation of gardens and green spaces. That duty would apply not only to the determination of planning applications, but to the formulation of medium and long-term planning policy generally. The clause does not automatically prohibit development on garden sites, but it does caution planning authorities to have regard to the desirability of safeguarding gardens and urban green spaces. Members will be aware that that is already the case for listed buildings and conservation areas; the clause simply articulates an additional factor for consideration.
	The point is that this provision would enable local planning authorities to exercise their own discretion over the occasions on which garden protection outweighs the interests of new development, and vice versa. At the moment, planning authorities have little chance of an objection on that ground being upheld on appeal. As a note from the House of Commons Library explained,
	"there was enough in PPG3 to justify developers appealing with every chance of success".
	One of the main reasons why planning authorities are so disempowered is that the Government are obsessed with targets. The blanket imposition of density targets means that the characteristics of suburban living that attracted people to live in a particular neighbourhood are under threat as never before. People are angry about that, but what makes them even angrier is that, although the Government can remedy the situation simply and easily, they have so far refused to do so.

Caroline Spelman: My hon. Friend is right. In a sense, he asks a rhetorical question. I am trying to give the Government an opportunity to address the unintended consequence of their planning law. I genuinely do not think that they set out to make the housing crisis worse. We are all here to assist them in resolving a crisis in the affordability of housing. I am deeply concerned that the method by which the Government have chosen to try to end the housing crisis in London—by giving the Mayor of London extra powers on housing and planning that have been removed from the London boroughs with their democratically elected councillors who sit closer to the problem and are more likely to achieve a solution—is not the right way to go about things.

Caroline Spelman: If what the Minister describes is working so well, why have 179 Members of Parliament from both sides of the House signed an early-day motion on the problem? Her colleagues from as far away as Birkenhead and Stockton-on-Tees have highlighted the fact that it is proving extremely difficult for local councils to resist applications for back-land development if, in the eyes of an appeal court, they fit the criteria of meeting the regional housing target and housing density criteria, which take precedence over more subjective considerations of suitability and the character of the neighbourhood.
	Neighbour is being pitted against neighbour. Communities are being doubled in size almost on a whim. Infrastructure is crumbling under the pressure. The only defence that the Government have so far offered is that more houses must be built. That
	argument is the logical consequence of a target-driven mentality, which focuses only on quantity rather than on suitability.

Ann Cryer: I have some sympathy with the hon. Lady's comments. I was gardener in a previous life. I love my garden and would hate to see it built on. However, does she agree that local authorities already have many powers to stop the erosion of gardens, such as unitary development plans and tree preservation orders? Measures are already in place for them to use. I am not sure that we need further legislation.

Caroline Spelman: Like the hon. Lady, I think rather wistfully of my gardening days, which seem a long way off. Despite all the protective measures that she refers to, there has been a significant further erosion of garden and green space. The statistics from the local authority of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) show that 60 per cent. of the brownfield land that was used for development was gardens, which demonstrates clearly the problem that exists. Since she states that local councils have the power to defend urban green space and gardens, I point her to the fact that, since the new Secretary of State took office, one in six planning decisions have been overturned, so the rate of local council decisions being overruled is higher than ever before.
	One of the hon. Lady's colleagues, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), spoke very eloquently the last time that we debated this matter, saying:
	"there is a problem even in a place such as Sunderland, where we have acres of brownfield sites but still have developers flying in helicopters looking for little bits of green space that they can fill in."—[ Official Report, 21 June 2006; Vol. 447, c. 1397.]
	There is an aggressive strategy of seeking out those very vulnerable green spaces.
	In short, the ready supply of suburban gardens has removed the incentive for developers to regenerate genuine brownfield sites and that is to everyone's cost. Clause 2 addresses the issue of getting genuine brownfield land, as in former industrial and commercial land, brought on stream for housing. It would require public bodies to publish reports on the extent to which their land can accommodate residential development. That is needed because there is a great deal of land held by the public sector that would be viable for residential development. The concept of land banking is, I am sure, not unfamiliar to Members. The duty to report is confined to developed land, that is to say land comprising buildings or hard surfaces. Reporting would make transparent the whereabouts of development opportunities and, in turn, require explanations if development was not forthcoming.
	In particular, reporting would encourage public bodies to consider creating residential development as part of a mix with commercial development. The planning process is bad at that. It fails to deliver new development where housing and employment exist within walking distance of each other, yet it makes much sense to strive for housing that is near commercial hubs where people can work, where children can go to school and where there are recreational facilities. That has the obvious environmental benefit of reducing commuting while family life benefits from living near one's work. I know how vital it is to live near work if one is to have any hope of balancing a job and seeing the children after school. For that matter, one needs a hospital with an accident and emergency department nearby. Today, of all days, I need to take my son to see the orthopaedic surgeon as he has broken his knee. I hope that the House will grant me a little grace at 2 pm to make that appointment.
	Clause 1 also obliges planners to have regard for the benefits of bringing commercial and residential development together. Too often, development is concentrated in dormitory estates or garden suburbs that are not equipped with sufficient transport links. Then there is not the space for people to park their cars because of the need for density targets, so they end up congesting the sides of streets and parking on verges and pavements, creating a hazard for mothers with pushchairs, who have to go out into the road to get round them.
	I hope that the Bill will reverse the present distortion in the planning system. This is not about being nimby—— [Interruption.] It is about getting the right mix of new homes built in strong, cohesive and sustainable communities. One of the main obstacles to getting more new housing built is public opposition and the Government have no one to blame but themselves for that. I heard from the Government Benches a rumble about my not wanting development in my backyard. Just for the record, my local authority is regenerating a council estate, Chelmsley Wood, that was built in the 1960s and has 29,500 houses, and will, as part of that regeneration, supply 5,000 extra affordable homes without any public money, as the borough of Solihull does not qualify for public money for housing regeneration.
	Local councils and, de facto, local communities, have been enfeebled when it comes to planning decisions. Local opinion is overruled by central planning guidance and the effect is that the Government have to force unpopular housing decisions on hostile communities via unaccountable regional quangos. That situation is absurd. Communities should be given more say in the planning decisions that will have such an impact on their lives. If communities could have a say in the location and shape of the housing that we need, the chances are that they would be a great deal more receptive to it. What are the Government so afraid of? I want far more houses built, but I do not think that the best way of doing that is for Whitehall to impose them on communities.
	That brings me to clause 3, which would give force to localism. The Government like to talk about localism, but this Bill, like the Sustainable Communities Bill so ably presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), is about delivering real localism. Clause 3 would enable planning authorities to decide themselves the density and proportions of new housing and set their own policies regarding residential development and gardens and urban green spaces. In short, it would give planning authorities the right to make their own policies and decisions in line with local opinion, without being enslaved by planning guidance from Whitehall.
	Planning is the Government's Achilles heel when it comes to localism. Unelected regional government in tandem with centrally imposed planning targets and guidance have reduced planning authorities to the role of hand-wringing bystanders. This clause would simply tip the scales back in favour of planning authorities and the communities that they serve. If the Government are genuine in their enthusiasm for localism, this is a measure that they should welcome.

Lorely Burt: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her very helpful intervention.
	Paragraph 47 of PPS3 permits local authorities to set a range of densities provided that the average is at least 30 dwellings per hectare. That is the national indicative minimum. That is an extremely helpful development in the new Government guidelines because it is totally appropriate that we recognise the differing densities in, and character of, neighbourhoods in local authority areas. That is fine as far as it goes, but the Bill would extend the provision much further to allow for a much greater degree of discretion.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) spoke in the debate in 2006. He said:
	"Liberal Democrat-led South Shropshire district council has found a way of promoting both affordability and sustainability even on the smallest infill and garden sites. We in the House of Commons should take account of the flexibility and innovation of local planning authorities that have a mind to take such action. We should be saying 'Please go and experiment. Please find the policies that work for your area. Please listen to your local communities. Please take account of the local situation.'"—[ Official Report, 21 June 2006; Vol. 447, c. 1405.]
	I suggest that Members on both sides have echoed that theme.
	Some local authorities can act for themselves. They do not need central Government to tell them how they should manage the character and quality of their local areas. However, there are still problems. I have already mentioned the strains on local services and the hon. Member for Tamworth has made the point that the inspectors who are called in on appeal by developers do not know the local area. The people who live in an area best understand the impact of such developments. As the hon. Member for Meriden pointed out, the council could still allow for building to take place on back gardens as part of the usual planning applications. That cry of "Power to the people" is certainly echoed by Liberal Democrats.
	The Bill includes a number of duties. The first would create a new section 71B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and would mean that
	"special regard shall be had to the desirability of preserving gardens and urban green spaces."
	That gives gardens the regard that they deserve. Instead of gardens being an afterthought that receives just a weak acknowledgment at the end of PPS3, there is recognition of their importance to the environment and the life of a community.
	The Bill is also helpful in that it considers how we respond to the challenge from Labour Members who have rightly asked where the new houses will come from. The Bill would empower local authorities to look much more carefully at derelict commercial areas. Although it is important that land should be available for commercial development—that funds the economic life of our country—the Bill is helpful in that it would lead to a review and the production of a report on commercial land. I have been to the regeneration offices in Solihull to see what land is available there. When we are criticised for not wanting to lose back gardens, we become eager to find ex-commercial brownfield sites that would be suitable for new housing and for providing the infrastructure that would enable affordable housing development to take place.
	In general, it is an excellent Bill. I commend my neighbour, the hon. Member for Meriden, for introducing it.

Andrew Dismore: I hope my hon. Friend and I are not at cross purposes. We are not talking about selling land in this context; we are talking about planning controls. It would, in fact, be possible to apply for planning permission to erect a block of flats on the site of Buckingham palace. I hope that Westminster council would not grant consent, although given its track record I would not be so sure. Anyway, it is possible to apply for planning consent in relation to a site that one does not own. We are not talking about the ownership of the site; my point is that developers try to winkle out sports clubs just as they try to winkle out those old ladies in houses. In my view, the planning constraints that apply to back gardens should also apply to privately owned sports grounds, not just the public grounds that the Bill probably includes in clause 6(b). That is another loophole with which I hope the hon. Lady will deal in Committee, if the Bill gets that far.
	One of the problems with the case that I have just mentioned was that the local authority had not bothered to do any homework to establish the level of demand for tennis courts. That omission was criticised by the inspector, who said "The developer has done some work on this, and he says that there is no need for additional tennis courts. The council has produced no evidence to the contrary. Therefore"—surprise, surprise—
	"Despite the opposition of local residents I find no compelling reason as to why residential development would not be an acceptable alternative use on the site if it were to be redeveloped."
	He went on to say that
	"it would be possible to put 6 dwellings on the site at a density...of around 31 dwellings per hectare".
	I have to say in parenthesis that I have difficulty with hectares. I am not sure what they are worth in old money—in acres. No doubt someone will put me right if necessary later.

Andrew Dismore: My hon. Friend has made his point.
	Proposed new section 71C addresses deals with mixed use residential development, and the hon. Member for Meriden hit on an interesting point in that respect. In my constituency, there will shortly be the major redevelopment of Brent Cross shopping centre. As that development stands, it will include a significant residential element—at the last count there were, I think, several hundred such units. My one concern is to maintain the appropriate percentage of affordable and social housing as part of the project. What one gets in respect of commercial developments is the whole panoply of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 106 negotiation. Local authorities look for a series of improvements—in Brent Cross, it is in respect of roads and public transport, which are expensive for the developers.
	The problem that then arises is as follows. It is said, "Okay, we want so many hectares to be set aside for housing," and the developer says, "Well, that's fine, but all of it has to be expensive housing because I cannot afford to provide social or affordable housing as you made me put in all the roads and public transport improvements." Such requirements are important, but we must ensure that they are not used as an excuse to back away from the basic requirement of the 50 per cent. affordable housing benchmark starting point. For my part, there is also the question of the very high proportion of social housing that the London Mayor expects to be provided.
	In the case of mixed communities, the reverse suggestion might apply, in that entire housing developments ought perhaps to have a commercial element built into them to ensure that the appropriate shops are provided for these huge developments. Otherwise, in effect, those who do not have a car cannot access the shops. I was going to say "the post office", but that would take us down a completely different route that I have no intention of going down. This is an important consideration, so we should perhaps look at the reverse side of the coin of proposed new section 71C. It is also important in this context to ensure that we have mixed tenure.
	Clause 6 does not define "commercial purposes", which could be a problem. Some of the developments that the hon. Member for Meriden or I might regard as commercial could be not-for-profit or public sector developments. One could not argue that a public sector development—a new hospital, for example—is a commercial development, but one might well want accommodation for nurses and doctors to be part of it. She is therefore right to make the point elsewhere in the Bill about the need for accommodation for public sector employees. Perhaps that issue could be dealt with under proposed new section 71C.
	So far, so good, from the hon. Lady's point of view. However, I start to get a little concerned when we get beyond clause 1. I am very much with her on clause 1, and I hope that she will see my suggestions in a positive light, but I have some problems with clause 2, on public bodies, both in principle and in terms of its phrasing. A public body is defined in clause 6 as
	"a Minister of the Crown...a local authority...a police or fire and emergency authority",
	or a
	"public body owning more than 10 hectares of land",
	which is 20-odd acres, in old money. My concern is the way in which clauses 2 and 6 fit together. For example, if we read
	"a Minister of the Crown"
	into clause 2(1), it would read as follows:
	"A Minister of the Crown shall publish reports"
	regarding
	"developed land which they own."
	The Department might own the land, but the Minister of the Crown does not—we are not talking about the Minister's private estate. However, that is how the Bill reads as constructed, so we will need to look at this issue. Moreover, a lot of land is not actually owned by public bodies but leased, or leased back, by them. The wording of clause 2, which refers to public bodies owning land, therefore needs to be improved.
	The hon. Lady's initiative is a very important one. In my area, Edgware hospital has been redeveloped. In fact, a brand-new hospital was provided through release of part of the brownfield site on which housing is now to be built. The old Colindale hospital, which is redundant, is about to undergo similar redevelopment. The Bill does not deal with the definition of quangos, however. For example, a huge argument is going on about the National Institute for Medical Research, in Mill Hill, which we in my constituency are all desperate to see remain there. I am not sure what its status is, but I doubt whether it qualifies as a public body according to the Bill's definition. If we cannot retain the institute, would the site be caught by her Bill, as drafted? I suspect that it would not, but it is an enormous site that perhaps needs to be dealt with under clause 2.
	A similar case in point is the British Library's national newspaper library, which is located in Colindale. The long-term objective is to move it from that site, which is too small. If that happens, another huge site would be released. Is the British Library a public body in the context of the definition in clause 6? Probably not. I know that paragraph (e) refers to a
	"public body owning more than 10 hectares of land as may be prescribed by regulations",
	but that begs the question of whether they are public bodies in the first place. The definition is self-serving. It says that a public body means a public body owning more than 10 hectares of land.

Caroline Spelman: This where we seriously part company. The fundamental difference is whether we believe in grass-roots democracy from the bottom up or an authoritarian, statist approach that is top down. The hon. Gentleman says that the Government would lose their grip on local councils, but the density that those councils would choose as appropriate for their locality would be heavily informed by the people who put them into office in the first place. He mentions the Mayor of London. Of course he is also elected, but in giving him the powers on housing and planning, the Government are overriding another democratically elected body with a grass roots-up approach to what is appropriate in a locality.

Andrew Dismore: I shall not get into a debate about whether the Mayor for London knows where Havering is. I suspect that the hon. Lady's constituency is not that different from mine. I have a very urban part, towards the south of the constituency, and a more suburban area with green belt, towards the north and east.
	I am not saying that we should ignore what local people and councils say. I am asking how we give voice to those who could be excluded from that process, the people who need somewhere to live. As I have said all along, we have to try to strike the right balance between local planning controls and the need to find places for people to live. The Bill starts off doing that very well, as it tries to preserve the character of an area by paying special regard to green belt and urban spaces. However, it goes on to say that, no matter what the housing need is in a particular city or nationally, a local authority can simply ignore it if it chooses. We must try to be more imaginative in our approach. The hon. Lady has come up with a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
	Similarly, exempt housing matters would include not only
	"the setting of net dwelling density targets"
	but
	"decisions relating to residential development on private gardens and urban green spaces."
	That would effectively exclude any planning application involving a residential development on a private garden or urban green space. Occasionally, such a development might be appropriate, and completely excluding it is the wrong way to proceed.
	I would like the problem resolved in a different way, by giving local amenity societies and concerned residents the right of appeal against the granting of planning consent, which would provide a better counterweight. I do not want somebody necessarily to be able to appeal against a neighbour's back extension, but I have long been convinced of the need to give people a voice in the planning mechanism if there is a significantly high threshold for the number of residents who want to appeal and the development is of a particular scale. The fact that we have not been able to provide that is a lacuna and a shame. Clause 3 is the one part of the Bill with which I have no sympathy at all. It will not achieve the object of reasonable balance, which clause 1 so admirably does.
	I would like to raise an additional point about clause 2, which clearly has a general nature where it states:
	"A public body shall publish reports on the desirability and practicality of providing residential accommodation... on developed land which they own."
	It does not say whether it means all the development land "which they own"—in Domesday Book fashion—or land that is redundant, disused and up for development. I think clause 2 needs to be a lot more specific. If it were to say simply, as it does in subsection (2), that every "seven years" a Government Department—

Tobias Ellwood: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You made it very clear a few moments ago that the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who has now been speaking for close to an hour, was wandering dangerously close into Committee territory. He is aware that many of his points can be made in Committee. He claims that he may not be selected for that Committee, but he knows that he could attend it, even if he were not selected for it. As other hon. Members are wish to speak in this important debate, I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on whether it is now time to allow them to participate.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I do not know the situation in Crawley, but 7,000 of the people on the council waiting list in Portsmouth are not people moving into the city of Portsmouth, but those who are already in the city, using the services in the city and looking for homes. Surely that it a consideration.

Natascha Engel: Let me move on now.
	The Bill would make it easier for local authorities to develop on urban green spaces, which is the opposite of the intention. Many Members have highlighted such unintended consequences. The Government have taken on board the concerns that are felt, and they have produced guidelines and planning rules to address them. The measures that are in place have been mentioned by Members in all part of the House. Planning policy statement 3—PPS3—of November last year gives local authorities clear powers to protect green spaces and open land, so the Bill is totally unnecessary.
	There is another unintended consequence of the Bill that I am really concerned about, and it is the reason why I definitely cannot support it. As I understand it, it would remove the power of national Government to intervene in these matters, and such decisions would be entirely down to local authorities.  [Interruption.] Well, that is my understanding. If the hon. Member for Meriden wants to intervene again, she is more than welcome to do so. If the Bill were enacted, national Government would no longer have the authority to intervene, so if a local authority decided to "land grab", there is nothing that national Government could do about it. That is entirely irresponsible.

Greg Clark: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. She will also be aware that in making the valuation of PPS3 the Library has considered the changes there and advises hon. Members that
	"Despite the change in the brownfield definition, it is clear that private gardens—other than allotment gardens—remain within it. The final sentence in PPS3 is a modest qualification to the definition."
	So the Library is saying that there is a modest change. There is clarity that regional spatial strategies and the housing targets imposed on local authorities take precedence. While that is the case, the warm words that are issuing from the Minister will provide no reassurance to planning committees and planning authorities throughout the country. That is why my hon. Friend's Bill is so important and why—to answer the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Tamworth that such things could be done through reassurances from Ministers—it is much more important that they are included in statute, so that we can have dependability. Until we have that, planning committees throughout the country and local residents will not feel that they have the protections that they require.
	My hon. Friend has set out in detail, clause by clause, the advantages of her Bill, so I will not detain the House by going through that again. Suffice it to say that the character of the Bill is entirely enabling. My Bill, which preceded hers, acknowledged that there will places up and down the country where it is desirable to build on gardens. However, the people who should make those decisions are the people who know the area and its needs, who are democratically elected by other people in the area, and who can be thrown out if they make the wrong decision. That is the entire thrust of my hon. Friend's Bill. I do not understand why certain Labour Members are so keen to refuse that discretion to local authorities. Surely they should trust elected members to make those decisions on their behalf.
	The Minister should be aware that the damage being done by garden grabbing is not just physical. Real damage is being done to local democracy, which is why the subsidiarity point that my hon. Friend mentioned is so important. Constituents up and down the country assume that, when they elect councillors and the councillors sit on a planning committee, that planning committee is empowered to make decisions concerning their local environment. However, the truth is that councils find themselves powerless to resist developments. The House of Commons Library note makes that perfectly clear, stating:
	"Some proposed developments may fail on design criteria. However, in other cases there may be no powerful reason for rejection. It is not easy for a planning authority to justify rejection on the grounds that a proposed development might spoil the character of an area."
	Our constituents want their elected members to be able to take a view on whether a development will spoil the character of the area, but PPS3 and its predecessors do not give elected members that discretion. They give the discretion to inspectors in Bristol, who, as hon. Members have pointed out, can swoop down for half a day, take a cursory look and fail to appreciate the depth of local attachment to the character of areas. Clearly, Ministers do not understand that those refusals undermine and corrode local democracy at a time when, with declining faith in democracy—at least in terms of participation in elections—we should be doing everything that we can to increase participation. We are going the wrong way with our planning law.
	Let me conclude with a point that is surely within the grasp of Ministers: the environmental importance of gardens. The debate is about not just the character of the building that takes place, but the vital role that urban and suburban gardens play in protecting and promoting biodiversity. Nationwide, urban gardens cover a greater area than all our nature reserves put together. It is the larger, longer gardens that provide the most valuable habitat for wildlife. Unfortunately, they are also the most tempting targets for that urban predator, the developer. Large blocks of space, especially those on which trees grow, play a vital role in countering the urban heat island effect in our towns. Thus they help to adapt our cities to climate change. Of course, climate change is not just a matter of higher temperatures. We are seeing changes in weather patterns, including a greater propensity to flash flooding. If we have flash floods, it is important that the drainage in our towns and suburbs copes. Gardens reabsorb rainwater into the ground and are an ideal way to preserve our supplies of water.

Andrew Pelling: My hon. Friend's point is important given that public infrastructure investment in our suburbs is often weak. It is not the Government's priority to invest in the suburbs. Additional strain is put on the infrastructure when there is no planning for all the additional residents who will live in an area as a result of all the planning applications. What is needed is an holistic approach, determined locally.

Andrew Slaughter: I would love to but I have only three or four minutes left.
	The simplest answer to that question would probably be yes, but the Conservatives say:
	"We want to see more affordable...homes."
	But they never say the number of affordable homes they want. It is always a vague aspiration that more properties should be built. The next question says:
	"You want more homes in urban areas. Why are you criticising the Government's density targets, which mean more homes are being built away from green field sites?"
	That is a good question. The hon. Member for Meriden addressed that issue in the most spurious way, referring to the issue of density. Rather than use hectares, I will use terminology that we all understand, I think. In my borough, there are currently one and a bit MPs. At the time of the second world war, there were four MPs representing the borough. The density of the population has gone down dramatically over that time. If the issue is infrastructure, which I do think is an issue, I would say: what about section 106 agreements—Conservative councils singularly fail to provide infrastructure in many cases—and what about planning gain supplement, which the Opposition parties again oppose?
	The Bill sends out a message, but it does not achieve anything; it is unnecessary, as a number of my hon. Friends have said. PPS3 gives a clear indication of what the Government would suggest to local authorities, but the initiative would then be left with them. The Bill would either direct local authorities—although Opposition Members now say that it would not—in which case it would be an unseemly interference with local discretion, or it would do nothing of the kind, in which case why is it necessary? From the point of view of the Conservative party, it is necessary in order to give the clearest possible indication that the aim of housing policy must always be to restrict development—to limit the number of properties built.
	The Conservatives have a record of failure on this issue, as they introduced the designation of gardens as brownfield sites, and as under them a far higher percentage of properties were built on greenfield land and on former residential land. It is also clear that very few Conservative councils, particularly in London, are doing anything to address housing need issues. If this Bill is the best that the Opposition can do in respect of housing policy, no one will be impressed; certainly none of those of my constituents who are in housing need will be impressed.
	The real reason for the Conservatives' position on the issues that we are debating is given in statements that they have made. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) talked about preserving 1930s terraces because they add to cityscapes. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) wishes all planning constraints in relation to residential development to be abolished, but only on post-war properties. Perhaps the Conservative position is best summed up by something that the hon. Member for Meriden says on her website:
	"No area across the country is immune from Labour's garden grabbing and it is only by changing legislation that we can stop the destruction of our leafy suburbs."
	That is the key reason for this legislation; it is simply about trying to look after certain parts of the country. It would ignore constituencies such as mine in terms of both housing need and housing development. Some Opposition Members ask why we need the Greater London Authority Bill. The reason why we need it, and why we need responsible planning and housing powers that are responsibly exercised, is because of the singular failure of the Conservative councils to do anything to relieve housing need.

Order for Second Reading read—[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified].
	Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be read a Second time on Friday 20 April.

Parmjit Dhanda: I am happy to write to my hon. Friend about the process for the ballots. I understand that they cover not only those who live in the catchment area, but those who use local schools.
	I am well aware of brain drain issues. My hon. Friend talked about children going out of her locality to grammar schools; in my constituency, there are four grammar schools so many children are coming into the area. However, it also means that many local children have to leave the area.
	We want to ensure fair access, and I would have been more concerned if my hon. Friend had told me that children could not obtain admission to particular schools just because they happened to live in a different local authority area. All over the country, but especially in our cities, parents exercise their choice to cross borough and county boundaries to travel to school, and it would be unfair to restrict that choice. However, it creates a challenge for non-selective schools because, as my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, the most able pupils in the area may go to a nearby grammar school. Although the ability profile of their intake is different, non-selective schools are still in the business of providing the best education possible for their pupils, which we have recognised by increasingly putting greater emphasis on value added in schools.
	My hon. Friend raised the issue of federations. The Government encourage schools to work together and collaborate, or federate, in a number of ways where it would improve school standards. That can include a statutory federation where up to five maintained schools federate under a single governing body. It is for individual governing bodies to decide whether they want to join a federation.
	Schools in statutory federations continue to be individual schools, and admission to each school continues to be determined by the appropriate admissions authority, which is the local education authority in the case of community and voluntary controlled schools and the federated governing body in the case of foundation and voluntary aided schools. Schools also keep their existing category and character, and do not gain, lose or change their religious character through membership of a statutory federation. More informal collaborative arrangements between maintained schools and schools not maintained by local education authorities, such as city technology colleges, academies, independent schools and further education institutions, are also possible, but they may not include federated governing bodies or formal joint committees of governing bodies.
	My hon. Friend asked about the size of academies and about the building schools for the future programme—BSF. I can reassure her that no criterion for BSF money is based on size; each proposal is considered individually. The figure of 1,200 is a guide for the average size of new provision, but it is by no means fixed. I hope that is helpful.
	The size of academies is not fixed at 900. The statutory guidance makes it clear that decision makers should not make blanket assumptions that schools need be of a certain size before they can be good schools. A number of other factors should be taken into consideration when assessing individual proposals.
	I hope I have answered most of my hon. Friend's questions and I wish her the very best in fleshing out the options locally, working with her local authority, to ensure that local school reorganisation and provision delivers the best for Cleethorpes. That is in the interests of my hon. Friend and I am sure she will continue to champion the issue.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Three o'clock.